kaa-
whumpff!
. . . and you land on something large and soft and pillowy in the darkness, after a drop of perhaps five or six meters.
The breath is slightly knocked out of you.
As you struggle to sit up in the space you now find yourself in, lit only slightly by the light from the opening above, you notice the stillness, the quietness. The very smell of the air has totally changed. It is more moist but not more musty, and carries the scent of damp soil.
You are sitting on a pile of large air-filled black cloth pillows. As your eyes adjust, you can make out a tall room. The eastern wall of the corridor above you continues down as a wall of this room, terminating in a floor of packed earth. The ladder you saw moments ago is bolted to it, reaching almost to the floor. It is of wrought iron, so intricately twisted, molded and filigreed in places that it looks out of place in this rough room.
Next to the top of the ladder is a large area of metal grillwork---
Behind you the unexpected sound of a door opening. You whirl to see me standing in a doorway, my hand still resting on the knob of a wooden door open towards you, my other hand holding a lit candle in a candleholder.
Sorry. I did not mean to startle you just now, and I apologize for the unexpected drop. I forgot to close the panel.
Somehow my voice manages to sound both sad and distracted.
Well, since you're here already . . . why don't you come with me?
You nod, and push yourself to your feet.
I turn around, beckoning you through the doorway in which I was standing, and down a stretch of hallway.